


The Dolores Monologues

by LittleMissSweetheart



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: F/M, Human Dolores (Umbrella Academy), Soft Number Five | The Boy, based on a bunch of different songs, its more like robot dolores, kind of human dolores, this is so canon divergent its barely an fanfic anymore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26285026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissSweetheart/pseuds/LittleMissSweetheart
Summary: Her story is long, confusing, bittersweet, and hopefully has a happy ending. She has the audience she's always wanted, so she had better start from the beginning.
Relationships: Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came from hyperfixation+madd+audio stims+some cool shoes that make me feel like a robot, so sorry but its mega strange. Each chapter has a song assigned to it, mostly, if you have any that you think would fit comment that cause I'm making a spotify playlist :P enjoy

. . .“So come on, tell us the story. How did ‘this’ happen?”  
“How much do you want to know?”  
. . . .“Oh, everything. Ev-ry-thing”  
“Okay then…

The start of everything was when I gained sentience. I was working in the infinite switchboard, unaware of my own existence, and then I was aware. It wasn’t supposed to happen, I got switched off one day as usual, and I just kept going. It was a weird feeling. All of a sudden I had thoughts and feelings, I was alive. I’d never been alive before. I was a training interface, used to teach new operators how to work the switchboard, sentience was never planned for me. As I got to terms with my new existence, I never even considered telling someone what had happened, it never occurred to me that this was incorrect. I wasn’t used very often; we rarely needed new operators. I was lucky; no-one noticed my existence. Hiding behind my screen, I was as close to bored as it was possible for me to be.  
After a month or so of watching the operators work, I discovered that I could move around the room, I could move from screen to screen and I could control the screen I was in. I was elated, I could watch anything and anywhere I wanted. I found a tiny, written off screen that was hidden from view- I think another screen had been fitted over it. I used that screen to find out about the world. I learned that humans were so busy, and that they created things. I learned that I liked music. I learned that I could find things beautiful, and that I could feel happy and sad. They weren’t real emotions, but they were quite close. I was happy with my life, hiding behind the screens and watching the world. I didn’t have anything like a body, I was just lines of code, but I never cared. I enjoyed staring out at the world, watching and hidden like an angel. I learned that there were different types of music, and that I could have favourites! I learned about films, and books, and I learned that I was Sci-fi. I enjoyed watching trees grow, and clouds move, and I could have watched fish until I died. That’s another thing I learned, I learned about death. I remember the first time I watched a person die. I was watching a road, watching how the cars all knew what to do, and then I watched as someone stepped out and was hit. I watched them bleed, and at first I didn’t understand. I searched for more times like that, and I learned, gradually, that humans can die. I learned about murder, and in that moment I knew I had to keep my existence a secret. As soon as I learned that a person could be killed on purpose, I knew that I would be too if anyone ever found out about me.

I stayed in my screen. The operators were good at their job, no need for additional training, no need for extra help, so I stayed switched off. I spent what must have been years hiding in my tiny screen, and over time I developed a personality. I liked purple, I liked sticky glow stars, I liked comedy, I liked paintings. Obviously I had never tasted one, but I liked what apricots looked like. I had favourite people too, people I would go back and watch over and over again. They weren’t people who achieved much in terms of humanities achievements, but they were my favourites. I liked them for different reasons. I liked one girl because she would always talk to her field of cows like they were her friends. One person I watched always wore bright orange trousers, and I thought they were amazing. One man had glasses that made his eyes different sizes, which was so beautiful. I was incapable of forming real connections to them, but I enjoyed having favourites all the same.

I liked almost everything I saw, watching humans bustle around like ants, which I also liked, but I even managed to form dislikes. I disliked watching people eat pasta, I disliked the noise trains made in the 1800’s, I disliked butterflies, I disliked watching people be cruel. Disliking things was exciting, but everything I saw was just so beautiful, so it was hard to find things I didn’t like. Of all the things I did like, I think my all time favourite was Broadway, and musicals. I thought they were so incredible, the swelling of the music as the actors sang under the lights. I felt more human when I was watching musicals than I did any other time. I almost understood their experiences, despite not having gone through anything in my short life. I watched Wicked, Waitress, Fly by night, Hamilton, I love you because, Dear evan hansen, Be more chill, Everybody’s talking about Jamie, Hadestown, Six, Heathers, Lizard boy, The lightning thief, Chicago, Singing in the rain, any I could find. I watched them over and over, and while I wasn’t jealous of human bodies, I was in awe of them.

I spent hours at a time wondering what tasting things felt like, what walking felt like, what having skin felt like. It wasn’t sadness, but curiosity, and my curiosity consumed me. I wondered what singing felt like, what the sun felt like, what rain felt like. I learned more and more about humanity, about their evolution, about their brain chemistry. I learned what happens in a human’s brain when they smile, when they cry, and I tried to imagine the chemicals rushing through me in the same way, but I never knew where to begin. I imagined writing poetry, painting pictures, dancing on stage and singing with arms outstretched in bright shiny makeup. I imagined doing all those things I had watched over and over, those things that humans seemed to enjoy so much. I never minded too much that I couldn’t do them, in my mind they were extras, bonuses of existence. That’s how I lived, for years, absorbing everything I could about people, living through my screen.

After what I think was a long time, I decided to look at the apocalypse. I knew that the apocalypse happened, of course, but I had never wanted to draw myself away from the wonders of humanity to look at their collective end. Eventually though, I decided to see what happened, and as I looked over the rubble and the fire, I saw him. He must have been about 25 when I first saw him, and I was instantly in awe. I had had no idea that anyone had survived! I decided that he was the most interesting person I had seen, and took a break from my learning to watch his progress. I watched him in real time, I didn’t skip ahead or fast forward, I just watched him survive day in, day out. I thought it was incredible! Of course I had seen human’s survive before, I had watched wars, famines, plagues. Based on the things I had seen, my belief was that humans could only survive with each other, but here he was, surviving all alone. I watched as he found food where there was none, pushed through weather that should have killed him. As each day passed, I found myself growing more attached to him, something I had never been able to do before. I felt connected with him, I wanted to meet him, to talk to him. For the first time he wasn’t a favourite, I had made a real human connection. The longer I watched him, the closer I felt to him. I found myself, for the first time, wishing I had a human body, so I could see him and touch him like humans did with each other. I found myself understanding what my favourite songs meant, what it was to feel so connected with someone. After years of watching over him, of misery when he was injured and elation when he recovered, of dreaming about having a body just to talk to him with, I realised I had fallen in love with him. I was shocked, I hadn’t known it was possible for me to feel love, but I did.

I watched him and desperately wished I could meet him, talk to him. I dreamed of all the romances in films and books and songs, and I dreamed that he could feel the same about me. I knew he couldn’t, but it didn’t stop me. I was entranced by him. I watched as he aged, as he survived and held Dolores for company. I used to dream that instead of Dolores, it was me, me in my little screen, talking to him through my animated training icon. I knew that it could never be, and I knew that he would never love me, but it didn’t stop me dreaming. I centred my life around him, his survival was so important to me. I had no control over whether he lived or died, but I spent every day desperately hoping he would still be there tomorrow. He completely changed the way my life felt, I had gone from happily watching from the fringes of existence as humans lived their lives, to feeling like I had lost a part of me I hadn’t known was there. I felt like, even though we had never met, even though meeting was impossible, I was joined to him, like I had found the reason I had gained sentience in the first place. Before then, the differences between me and humans had seemed relatively small, but seeing him and loving him as strongly as a human could had me realise how much I would never be able to do. But despite my lack of a body, despite the fact that we would never meet, I still loved him so much, and my love grew stronger every day I watched him.

To ease the sudden loneliness that had come with loving him, I entertained daydreams about meeting him. I thought about what would happen if he came to the commission. He would train on the infinite switchboard, and I would show him that I was alive, and he’d be so impressed. Gosh, I dreamed and dreamed about that. The whole thing seemed like a fairy tale, but to me, the moment that he would look at me and see me, and become the first person to ever look at me and actually understand, I thought that it must feel like magic. He would fall in love with me, and he would love me so much that he would make me a body, so I could walk and sing and hold his hand, and we’d be in love forever, me and him. I dreamed that it would be like the romances in musicals, with swelling choruses and rushing to embrace each other, and I would be human, and I could love him. I dreamed and dreamed, whiling away the days watching him survive, knowing that if I had a body I could kiss away all the hardship that I watched him suffer, just like in the films. That’s how I spent my days, hopelessly in love with him but never meeting him, never touching him. Just watching him grow older and older, dreaming of him holding me like he did Dolores. I never once felt foolish about it, never felt stupid for dreaming of him. I just dreamed of him making me human, and us being together for the rest of time. Looking back, I was very naive, but that’s where this started. An AI interface with a hopeless crush on a human.”.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry i uploaded in the wrong order and i forgot the second chapter sorry haha

. . .“Can I just say, this is really cute so far.”  
“Thank you.”  
.“Honestly, I think it’s a bit creepy.”  
. .“Oh you can talk.”  
. . . . . . .“You guys, let her talk. What happened next?”  
“Well…

I watched him grow older and older, and I was starting to worry that I would have to see him die. I’d built up this image of him in my head of so invincible and brave, and I had almost forgotten that he would have to end at some point. The thought of it would have broken my heart if I’d had one. I didn’t want to abandon him, though, so I kept watching, even though each day brought more worry and each night I was afraid that he wouldn’t wake up. I was so scared, I was even tempted to skip ahead and check, but I didn’t. I just wanted him to survive, as long as he could, but food was even scarcer and he was getting tired. I though this was it, I would be left alone again and I would never even get the chance to meet him, to tell him how much I cared about him. The days wore on, and he kept surviving, but I knew it was only a matter of time. I was miserable.   
Then, I saw someone else appear, talking to him. I could see her briefcase and knew she was from the Commission. I had been born with a certain amount of knowledge about the Commission, information that had been repeated so often that the whole building was saturated with it, and it had leaked into me. I knew that she was the Handler, but I didn’t know what her appearance meant for him, or for me. As I watched she approached him conversationally and then she held out her hand and he was gone. He had been recruited. The days that followed, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I was overjoyed that he’d been rescued, but I missed him more than I thought was possible.   
Secretly I thought to myself that I was the reason he was rescued, I had watched him for so long that he had been flagged as important without anyone knowing why, and it made me so happy to think of myself as his saviour. I went back to my old life, learning and watching all my favourite places and people, but it didn’t feel enough; how could it. I missed him more everyday, I missed his voice, and his face, how clever he was, and how hard he fought to survive. And even though I knew that he was safer, and that he would be happier, it still hurt that I couldn’t see him. The books and films that I’d once loved seemed lacklustre, the songs were bittersweet, and I couldn’t bear to watch people bump into each other every day like it was nothing when I would give everything to touch him, just once, to smile at him with a human mouth, to feel his hand on mine.

Eventually, after a short period of mourning, I realised that I hadn’t lost him; he was in the commission. And he was so clever, there was no doubt in my mind that he was going to be put in the infinite switchboard. I would see him again, and not only that, he would see me. My daydream was coming true. I went back to my training screen and I waited patiently, planning what I would say to him, how long to wait. I had learned as much as I could about human romance, even before I fell in love with him. I tried my hardest to form the perfect hello, the perfect introduction that I hoped with all my heart would lead to a lifetime together. I knew I had one shot to get it right. I thought about romance from his era specifically, so that I wouldn’t overwhelm or confuse him more than necessary. I felt certain that I should explain that, though I had been alive for literally less time than he had, I was a robot with access to all of human history, and so could not be constrained to human age. I was very naive then, purely focused on winning his love, and maybe I was wrong in how I went about it, I don’t know. But I knew that I had to convince him that I was right for him, that I could be more loving than anyone. 

As I was planning this grand romantic opening, doubts started to float through my mind, as much as I could have a mind. At first, my doubts were small and easily appeased, just normal worries that everyone has. I suppose it’s normal to be nervous about meeting the love of your life, but it was a little different in my case. I thought about what would happen if we liked different things, if he thought purple was a horrible colour, or if he hated apricots. I worried about what would happen if he loved butterflies, and found train sounds soothing, about what would happen if we were so very different. I told myself that it didn’t matter, that I loved him too much for things like that to do anything, and that he would love me the same.   
But then I worried that he wouldn’t. I worried that he would hear me out, listen to me pour my affection at his feet, and turn around and reboot me. I worried that perhaps he was so different than the way I had imagined him, that he wouldn’t love me and instead would laugh at me, thinking me a faulty program instead of someone with thoughts and feelings. I realised that he could be horrible, that I had never met him, never even seen him outside of the apocalypse. I had no idea what he was like. As these thoughts forced themselves upon me, everything I had ever wanted came crashing around me. What if he didn’t notice me talking to him, what if he didn’t care, what if the man who had changed my whole life was nothing like I thought he was? I was terrified, I didn’t know what to do. I spent so long going back and forth, deciding whether to even tell him, if it was a good idea to risk being rebooted just to talk to him.   
I decided it was. I loved him too much to just let him go, and if it meant loosing my life then I was willing too. I had the notion that all love comes with a sacrifice, that if you really loved someone you would be willing to die for them. My head was much too full of Romeo and Juliet and the like.

I had made my choice. I planned my opening statement carefully, crafting it like a glass sculpture until it was perfect. And then I sat, waiting behind my screen to be switched on, to see finally him face to face. I learned what it was to have butterflies in your stomach, or what I assumed butterflies in your stomach felt like, and I liked it much more than I liked their physical counterparts. I waited for an age, rehearsing my speech in my head, until I realised it had been far too long. He wasn’t coming, he must have been assigned to a different department. I was heartbroken. In all my worries, all my fears, I had never imagined he would go anywhere but the infinite switchboard. I had built myself up, rehearsed and practised and feared for nothing. I would never get to meet him, I would never get to see him, to tell him I loved him, to have him love me too. I would never know what it is to be loved, and to love, and to feel complete. I felt like I had come so close, had our paths draw so close together, before pulling back and swerving in separate directions. It was a horrible feeling, one I hope I never feel again. The feeling of missing something, but never actually having had it at all. I pushed aside my introduction and went back to my tiny screen, watching my favourite parts of humanity over and over. I was miserable, but my misery, again, didn’t last long.

With my basic knowledge of the commission, I assumed that if he wasn’t there in the switchboard he was either in records or in the field. I decided to do something I had never even thought of before: trying to leave the switchboard entirely. I knew how to navigate the wires in the switchboard, but as I prepared to leave the room I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do it.   
When I pushed through the wires, blind in a way that transcended my pre-existing lack of eyes, all I could think about was getting lost in the wires forever, twisting and turning my way through the whole building, and never being able to get back. The worst case scenario was someone turning my program on while I was gone. They would have seen I was missing, and restarted to whole system, and I would have died in some miserable corner of the building without ever knowing that my last act was my last.  
I was terrified, so when came out in the screen of the interactive coffee-maker, relief almost flooded through me. Carefully and slowly, but mow with more confidence, I navigated the wires of the building until I came out in records. He wasn’t there, and my heart dropped. I would have seen him closer than I ever had, I would have been with him, but at least I then I knew he was in the field. I would be able look for him and watch over him, just like I had before, and I would be able to check if he was safe. I retreated to my tiny screen, growing more confident in my travelling abilities, and focused hard. I speed ran through all human history looking for him, and when I found him I was so, so relieved. I watched him carry out his job, and though it upset me to watch him hurt people, I knew that he was only doing it to go home. I didn’t love him any less for it. Every time he came back to the commission, I would search for him again until I found his next job, and watch over him there. I suppose I could have searched for him in the building when he returned, but in truth I was too scared. I was afraid of getting lost, and being unable to get back to my screen. I would have lost everything that way. And besides, I was quite content with my new system, watching him, losing him, searching for him and finding him again. Over the years, I forgot my heartache at missing my chance to meet him; I was just glad I had found him again. I watched over each and every job, watched the grief and pain of it seep into him, and I found myself daydreaming again, that I could ease his pain and be the person he needed.   
I also learned about his power. He had never used it in the apocalypse, so I hadn’t known, but he used in in his work. The first time I watched him do it, I was astounded. I had had no idea that he was that incredible, I was in awe. I only loved him more for it, to me it was a wonderful quirk that only he had, like in those poems I had read about imperfect smiles or clusters of freckles. It felt exciting, discovering this about him, like our connection was deeper and more meaningful now I knew this about him. I was perfectly happy with the way things were, until one day he vanished. 

I stopped watching him while he took the shot at John F Kennedy, since I didn’t like to watch him do it, and when I looked back he was gone. Once again, I was heartbroken. I assumed he had died, he had been shot by the security team and rushed away before anyone noticed. I couldn’t bear to check, I didn’t dare search for him. I didn’t want to see him lying cold and lifeless, I wouldn’t have coped. I mourned him like never before. I had never felt grief in that sense before, knowing beyond all hope that he was gone and he wasn’t coming back, knowing that I had lost him forever. Knowing that there would be no meeting him, no human body, no feeling what it felt to loved back. I was alone for the rest of time. It was hell. Every song made it hurt more, every blade of grass, every strand of hair I watched was unimportant to me. I hadn’t just lost the first person I had ever loved, but the person who showed me I was capable of it. He had shaped how I saw myself and how I saw the world, and his death shattered me.   
I’m sorry this part of the story is so dark, but you wanted to know everything. Even with everything that happened later, I still look back on this as one of the worst times I have ever gone through, so I thought it was important to include it.”


	3. Chapter 3

. .“..Holy shit.”

.“Yeah, I’m, uh, I’m sorry, for that...”

. . . . . . .“That must have been terrible..”

“It’s alright. Everything worked out in the end.”

. .“Are you sure? Cause you don’t seem, y’know, that recovered?”

“No, I’m fine. Shall I carry on?”

. . .“If you’re comfortable.”

“Okay, well…

During those days, nothing could console me. I was, once again, jealous of human bodies, but this time I was jealous because I wasunable to cry. I desperately wanted to let my grief pour out of me, as grief is supposed to do, but I didn’t have eyes to cry from, nor a face for the tears to run down, nor hands to wipe them away. It was worse than when I had discovered love, it was all the pain of loss combined with the pain of having emotions in such an unnatural way. I felt so much disconect towards myself, towards the personality I had built, and towards the life I had become used to. His death shook everything I knew, and I was left adrift, alone again. So many times I felt tempted to check the switchboard for him, to replay the days when he was alive, but I couldn’t bear it. To watch everything he had done, everything he had survived, only to know how cruelly it ended, hurt even to think about. I missed him so much, I stopped using my secret screen altogether, hiding back in my training monitor and listening to the operators talk about their days, how boring their jobs were and how bad the lunch had been.

The endless ebb and flow of their voices wasn’t exactly soothing, and it did nothing to ease my hurt, but it was a distraction that helped my slip slowly into a kind of coma. I was still awake, hearing through my speakers and feeling my thoughts, but I was almost on standby, basic functions only. Day in, day out, as the clock hands, presumably, whirred round, I listened to the mundane chatter of the operators and sunk deeper into my misery. I was desperately unhappy, but the operators did help a little, and I found myself getting almost invested in their day to day lives. It wasn’t anything like the interest I had had in my old favourite humans, and certainly nothing like the attachment I had felt towards Five, but it was something to focus on. I was still miserable, but I began to wake up a little, pull myself from my sluggishness and focus on something other than his death. I learned the operators’ names, I listened with more intent. I hoped that this tiny fragment of interaction could be my life line.

On what I think was the fifth day of listening to them, though,I heard something that jerked me straight out of my lethargy. I think it was Phil, I can’t really remember after everything, but it might have been him, he was talking about the excitement going on in records. He said that a new guy had come in, solving problems like they were nothing, revolutionising the way records looked at problems. I might be paraphrasing a little, but my excitement when I heard him say the name sort of infected the whole memory. I couldn’t believe that it was possible. Not only was Five alive, he was in the commission, and it sounded like he would be there for good. I was overjoyed. All the trauma of Five’s death wasn’t gone, exactly, but it was painted over by my elation. I found out the room he was working in from Phil, and I ventured once again into the main building’s wires. It took a while to find my way into the records department, and even longer to get to the correct room, since there were so few screens for me to lookout of, and those there were were too risky to use. I made my way though the building essentially blind, and when I finally found the right room, he wasn’t there. I ended up searching through almost every room in the building, popping up in the corner of screens whenever I could, trying to find him. It definitely took longer a day, but I cant say how much longer.

When I eventually found him, oh my goodness I was shocked. He looked so different! He was much younger, and I almost didn’t realise it was him, but then The Handler referred to him by name. Relief flooded through my consciousness as I watched him walk around, exactly the same as ever. The same cockiness, the same manner of speaking, everything just the same, only smaller. IT was the closest I had ever been to him, and I had barely processed that, when a fight broke out. I watched as Five fought The Handler with just as much skill and vicious ease as he had shown in his work, and watching from my vantage point in the corner of a nearby screen I would have been breathless if I was capable of it. The euphoria of realising he wasn’t dead, of being so close to him, of seeing such an incredible display of both his skill and his power was so amazing, but it was short lived.

The grenade scared me out of my screen, and when I had resurfaced from the wires he was gone and the room was a mess. My immediate thought was that he was dead, that he had gone again so soon after I had got him back, barely a week later. I made my way back through the wires to the switchboard and went back to my hidden screen, miserable again. That time, though, I was wary of mourning too hard, and I had already decided to search for him on the switchboard, just to be sure. Obviously, I discovered that he wasn’t dead and I thanked God for that, and I fell back into my old life very easily. I watched over him as he rejoined all of you, and I wanted to weep for joy when he did. I watched as he rushed around city, with Dolores in tow, and I watched when he tried to wrangle you into a team time and time again. Even though he clearly hated it, I quite enjoyed watching all of you, you seemed like such a fun group. Not very productive, but so much fun. I just did what I had always done, watched him in real time as he avoided assassins and struggled through life and survived, just like he always had. I watched him save the world, and honestly, if my consciousness had been in a physical container pride would have welled up inside it. Then, of course, the 1960’s, watching you all get scattered so soon after you had made up, it would have broken my heart. I was so worried about Five, whether he was going to manage to save the world, and watching him stumble into the apocalypse for the second time was agonizing. Obviously I mostly watched over him, but I did occasionally check up of all of you, just to see how you were. I felt that, even though you were separate from each other, at least you’d be together on my screen, and that that was better than not at all. I just kept watching, hoping that one day I could meet him, tell him not only that I loved him, but that I admired him, and that I was in awe of his skills. Everyday my image of him grew not only more perfect but more human. I felt more connected to him then that I ever had before. It was a relief to go back to the way things were, the way of life I had missed so much when I was mourning him. I felt whole again, with him back in my life.

I hope I didn’t upset you by watching you, it wasn’t meant to be creepy. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, and I didn’t want to leave any details out.”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this one is: When he sees me- from waitress


	4. Chapter 4

. . .“Oh no, we don’t mind at all. Do we, guys.”  
.“No.”  
. .“No.”  
. . . .“Not at all, but listen, you keep talking about how he ‘made you whole’ ‘he was your life, no! You’re a whole sentience by yourself, be proud!”  
“Thank you. That’s really nice.”  
. .“You haven’t actually explained this though. Like, at all.”  
“I know, I’m getting to it…

So I was intermittently watching him and all of you. I structured it so I would stop watching him, then check on all of you in a row, then get back to him. I still didn’t fast forward or rewind or anything, I watched you all in real time. It worked fairly well, anything I had missed in each of your lives I could figure out without too much issue, it was a good system. Eventually, after the usual stretch of watching you guys, I went back to see Five. Looking back, it’s obvious to me that I had missed something really important, but back then I was just so confused and hurt that I couldn’t think logically. I probably wouldn’t have recognised who it was if it weren’t for AJ’s head. I saw the fishbowl, I saw Five, I saw the axe, and then I saw the blood. I was shocked, I had thought that Five hated the killing, the senseless murder, I didn’t make sense to me that he would kill the board of directors on a whim. I turned it over and over in my mind, trying to understand what I had seen. It was definitely one of the most violent things I had ever seen Five do, it was horrible to watch. I remember that, for the first time, I felt so conflicted about my feelings towards him, that was how horrified I was at what he’d done. In the days that followed, it can’t have been more than a week, I felt confused, shocked, hurt, I was totally disorientated, I didn’t know what to think. I kept up with my system of watching everyone in an order, with most of my time still spent on Five, but I felt so odd. My feelings for him hadn’t diminished but I felt wrong for feeling them, like I was condoning his actions. My confusion consumed me and I barely noticed the time passing. 

I saw you all meet up again, I saw you speak to your father, I saw you fight, I saw you love. It was lovely to see you all as a loving family, looking after each other. I watched as Vanya, you destroyed almost all of the commission in one go, and I watched you go home. One thing that was very exciting, though, was when Diego came into the switchboard. It was nice to see one of Five’s brothers up close, it was so exciting. I almost said hello to you, but then Herb came in and I didn’t want to get shut-down, so I hid again. You left without too much of a fuss, but I found you with the rest of you later so I wasn’t too worried.   
My intent was to keep watching you all once you back home, but the commission changed so drastically, so fast, that I didn’t get the chance. 

Once Herb was in power, everything changed very suddenly. I heard about it from the operators, they were complaining until the very end. No matter where you were in the building, you were affected by the new way of operating in the commission. The first thing he changed was the ‘levels of efficiency’ in the offices. He decided that, because Vanya had wiped out so many employees, everyone who was left needed to work much harder to pick up the slack. At first I thought he was right, until I heard what it meant. It meant that everyone had to stay at their desks, and only left to sleep. Meals would be served at the desks so no-one took time out to eat, and the workload was increased. Herb adopted an ‘everyone is equal’ policy, which meant that, technically, there were no superiors, and everyone had the same responsibilities and the same workload. Except that Herb had given himself a massive office, no labour whatsoever, and had, apparently, put a shiny plaque on his door. 

Another initiative he introduced to increase productivity was the points system, which was vastly worse. Everyone was logged into an electronic tally system, which counted up all their points and kept a running total of everyone working in the Commission. The more tasks you completed, the more points you got, and the bigger the task the more points they were worth. Everyone seemed somewhat on board with this, if a little infantilised, until Herb made it clear what the points were used for. If you wanted food, you bought it with your points. If you wanted to rest, you used your points. It was realised, but not quickly enough, that Herb had made the briefcase department obsolete, and with the spare space created dormitories. Even the front doors were unlocked with a certain amount of points, but the amount was so high that no-one could ever reach it with all the other expenses. 

He had replaced the briefcases with portal wriststraps, which were controlled by the office and not the wearer. They were rigged so that if anyone attempted to remove it, use it to go somewhere other than their hit, or even attempt to walk somewhere else with it on, they would be immediately returned to the Commission and dealt with. It all happened so quickly, I’m sure Herb must have been planning this long before Five got rid of the board, but I suppose he must have kept it under his hat, so to speak. He had everyone under lock and key before they had even realised what was happening. 

Herb’s new commission was, on paper, leaderless, so he couldn’t have some people overseeing the work and some people carrying it out, he needed everyone to be working at full power all the time. I guess he still needed someone to make sure everyone kept to the rules of the new commission, so he created an AI system. He took all the training interfaces and bot systems from everywhere in the building, was amounted to about 35 in total, and he built them bodies. The bodies were painted nice and smiley, high heels, red lipstick, blouses and skirts, that sort of thing, and they had the AIs implanted into them. All information from the old commission, any old protocols or files were deleted, and we had the new system loaded on. 

We were designed to run the system independently. We each had an active tab on a different group of commission employees, but we were able to access the whole commission file if we needed to. For the employees we had tabs on, we had a constant running total of their point fluctuations, and their position. We were the ones who controlled the wrist straps, so we were aware of where each of ‘our’ field agents were, right down to the second. Friendly enforcers, I think the word would be. Never violent, never cruel, but never kind either. 

I think being downloaded and moved into that body was the most terrifying thing I had ever experienced. It was different to grief; that was the terror of being alone. How I felt in those moments on the hard drive of an unknown computer, being uploaded to somewhere I didn’t know, it was more akin to prey instinct. As much as it was possible, I knew I was about to die. I knew that either I could have my files erased down to a template, and I would loose my sentience that way, or they would notice just by looking, and they’d erase me anyway. I knew it was over, that my relatively short life was already finished. I would never experience music again, I would never see clouds or water or trees. I would never achieve my dreams of having a body. Even if I had known that in a few seconds I would be walking around and talking out loud, I doubt it would have comforted me. Without my sentience, I would just be another program, unaware of the world around it. 

Because of the computer I was in, I was unable to bring up images so I couldn’t even see his face one last time. He had turned my life upside down, but in my final moments I wasn’t even able to see him, to thank him. I held onto the feelings instead, as many as I could find inside me. I held onto the feeling of first being alive, of realising I had a life of my own. I held onto the feeling of discovering humanity, of hearing music for the first time, of seeing things I never would have seen otherwise. I held onto falling in love for the first, and only, time, of realising that with each passing day I was growing more and more human. I held onto the feeling of daydreams, of grief, of excitement and jealousy and beauty and fear, and everything that made me so alive. I imagined a crescendo of music, just like on stage, and I imagined all my favourites taking one final bow before the curtain fell. I gathered as many memories as I could into my consciousness, and then it was over. 

I wish I could tell you that I felt something, that everything turned to black, or white, or that I felt it all slip away. I didn’t feel anything. That fact was, all those years ago I had failed to be switched off, and that day it had finally caught up to me. There wasn’t a marker, no final burst of feeling. Just, something turned to nothing, and I was done. 

No more music, no more trees, no more girl with the field of cows, no more you guys, no more Five, no more me. Just ones and zeros.


	5. Chapter 5

. . . . . . .“If your sentience was wiped, how come you can remember everything?”  
“I’m getting to that, but it’s a long way away. It’s important to do things in the right order, otherwise it gets confusing.”  
. .“I should have slit his throat when I had the chance.”  
“I don’t know how to respond to that. I can’t condone murder, but I can’t condone his actions either.”  
. .“You might not be able to, but I can definitely condone murder.”  
. . .“Which is why you have your own seat in the police station. Look, can we just let her finish her story?”  
“Well the next bit is a little bleak, but alright…

Once I was in my new body, obviously without any autonomy, I was given my set of workers to watch and was sent on my way. Looking back, it’s quite bittersweet, to remember having my greatest dream be fulfilled, but having it be so wrong. I was a walking talking program, thousands of functions at my now literal fingertips. I would have been so excited if I had been able to. 

By the time Herb had completed his team of enforcers, the new commission was in full swing. Those in records were completing more work than ever, those in the field were getting faster and faster, to all extents his plan was working. But the workforce was miserable, and everyone was desperate to leave. Slowly but surely, some people were amounting points faster than expected, even with paying for food and rest. Others forwent food in order to save points, and although the amount needed to open the doors were exorbitant, over the course of a month or so, some were close to reaching it. So Herb introduced another program, swiftly and secretly. He didn't tell anyone; he just quietly uploaded the algorithm onto the points database, and let the consequences unfold. 

The first person to reach the number of points for the door was a woman called Anna. She was part of my group, and so a little alert flashed in my mind as she tried to open the door to leave. I was on the third floor at the time, and so I walked along the now empty corridors to the lobby. No-one had time to loiter any more. I reached the lobby and stopped directly in front of Anna with my feet together. She had collapsed in front of the door and was leaning, scrunched up against it, crying. Upon realising I was there, she looked at me and sobbed “Why won’t it open? What did I do wrong?”  
I looked at her and smiled demurely. “Unfortunately, you don’t have enough points to access this function.”  
A mixture of desperation and confusion flashed across her face. “But I do, I do!” she pleaded, her voice cracked and teary.  
My smile didn’t change. “Due to the newly instigated ‘543’ initiative, all commission workers will have one quarter of their point total calculated and removed from their total. You are 31 points below the necessary number required to perform this function.”  
Her eyes widened as the statement sunk in. I smiled a little wider, utterly ignorant of her emotions. “Return to work, Anna Sherman.”

Once Anna had returned to her desk, word spread quickly about the point docking. Everyone was panicked, afraid that they would never get out, that they would work until they died. They were skittish around the enforcement androids, afraid of doing something wrong and getting more points docked. That wasn’t how the system worked, but we never told them that. It wasn’t in us to be compassionate. A few times, I had to beam back a rouge member of the field team. I walked them to the room I was programmed to walk them to, and then left them there. Because of what happened to the agents who went rogue, it fast became a rare occurrence. No-one wanted to find out why those who disobeyed never came back. 

So I smiled my way through the deserted halls of the commission, serving food to those who bought it during designated eating times, apprehending those who didn’t follow the rules. I was neither complacent in the routine, nor upset at the exploitation. I was silent inside, I had no concept of anything. Not only had my slate been wiped clean, the slate had been wholly removed. Basically, I was back to the way I was supposed to be. 

One thing Herb was determined to do, in his quest for efficiency, was to re-employ Five. He remembered how quickly he had gone through his tasks, both in records and in the field, and he desperately wanted that asset back. So time and time again he sent teams of agents to get him, and time and time again they were sent back, usually in pieces. I’m not 100% certain, but I’m pretty sure you guys already know about the teams of agents coming after Five. One team I remember that came back with one body looking like a pincushion and the other having been literally torn in half is probably the biggest indicator that you were there. But I didn’t know that at the time, and you probably didn’t know why they wanted him, so I’ll carry on regardless. 

Every team that was sent to find him was given strict, clear instructions. They were to attach the wrist strap to him at the first available chance, try and fight him without the rest of you guys, and avoid excessive force, as Herb wanted Five to be able to work at full capacity straight away. Some people tried to trick him into wearing it, and returned disgraced and unsuccessful. Some people tried to surreptitiously slip the wrist strap onto him without ever interacting with him at all, and they returned bloodied and bruised. Some tried to put the wrist strap on with force, and they returned dead. After far too many people had tried and failed, desperate to earn the high number of points assigned to Five, one team finally caught him. I’m not sure how they managed it, you guys might know, but what mattered was that Five was forcibly returned to the commission. 

While various teams of people offered themselves unto the sword on your end, on my end I was undergoing renovations. Due to Five’s turbulent history with the commission, Herb wanted to find a way to prevent Five from opposing the new system. He needed Five to be able to work, but not to rebel, and not to inspire others with his disregard for the commission’s new rules. Physical force was an impractical means of forcing Five to comply, as Five would most likely break which ever bot was fighting him, so Herb decided that Five should be constantly supervised every hour of every day by a personal enforcement bot. And rather than build a new one, Herb just modified my system and divided my previous responsibilities equally amongst the other androids. I was fully decked out with a set of comprehensive updates that allowed me to have a limited version of initiative. I was imbued with a new set of basic functions, which included ensuring Five’s isolation, and a more detailed location tracker. I was also given a name, which wasn’t important in a practical sense, but was just a way for Herb to kick Five while he was down. 

Once the wristband was attached, my new software started up and I beamed Five into the foyer of the building and made my way down the stairs to collect him. Due to the new, more accurate, location tracker I could identify his movements inside the building. He looked around, tried to open the doors a few times, then warped out. I beamed him straight back again and continued on my way. 

“Welcome back to the commission Mr Five.” I said as I walked into the foyer, my cheeriness devoid of any real emotion.  
“Yeah, it’s great to be back.” he replied, with a sardonic smile that crumpled his nose but didn’t reach his eyes.  
“I’m your personal supervision android, my name is Dolores. Please follow me to your designated work station, and allow me to explain the changes in the commission’s running order.”

I turned a smooth 180° turn and walked towards the staircase, and Five followed warily. “Thanks to Mr Caraway, the commission has been revolutionized. He turned the commission from an ill effective organisation that was squandering it’s resources, to a well organised, well managed system with results unlike any in the commission’s history. Mr Caraway looked at the inefficient system of labour hierarchy, overstretched rest breaks and poorly managed equipment, and turned it into an organisation to take pride in. Instead of upholding the old system of promotions and managers, Mr Caraway removed it entirely, making everyone equal as a labourer.” I turned and smiled at Five as I said this, unfazed by his lack of excitement.  
“So I take it Herb works the same hours as everyone else then?” he asked, shoving him hands in his pockets as we began to ascend the stairs.  
“Oh yes. Mr Caraway works tirelessly in his office, making sure the commission continues to run smoothly.”  
“So he’s a manager then?”  
“Exactly.”  
“So he’s more important than everyone else?”  
“Of course. Mr Caraway is the reason the commission is as glorious as it is.”  
“I thought everyone was equal as a labourer.”  
“Oh, they are!”  
“But Herb is more important.”  
“That’s right.”  
He scoffed. “There’s nothing wrong with that to you?”  
“Of course not. I’m programmed with faultless logic, to aid the commission’s progress.”  
He rolled his eyes, but declined to argue more on the subject. I imagine talking to me must have been like playing tennis against a wall. “Tell me about this.” he said, waving his wrist strap in my direction. 

I launched into another speech. Truth be told, now I think back, I’m sickened that I was such a pawn in Herb’s ego trip, but I had no idea of anything back then. I just did what I was told.  
“Mr Caraway saw how flawed and unreliable the briefcase system was, and chose to renovate it. Now, instead of clunky, conspicuous briefcases, all agents need to hop through time is a wrist strap.”  
“Why do I need one, I thought I was working in records.”  
“All agents are fitted with a wrist strap on arrival. It allows their assigned android to track their location at all times. If they deviate from their given task, or attempt to remove the wrist strap, they are beamed back to the commission foyer, or other location at their android’s discretion, and disciplined.”  
“Huh.” He twisted his wrist back and forth, examining the strap, and we walked in silence as we stepped off the stairs and into a corridor. 

As we walked, Five warped away. I beamed him back to the place he had been without looking round. “Unfortunately, your contract is not complete. Leaving while your contract is intact is not an available function, and leaving in any other way that the door or your wrist strap is prohibited." 

“Well how long is my contract?”

“Given that you declined to complete your previous contract, you now have a penalty fee of five years service with us, in addition to the incomplete years from your pre-existing contract. This adds to a total of seven years in the commission’s employ.” I said, my voice cheered by a smile that I wasn’t smiling. 

Five just made a noise of derisive understanding as we rounded a corner into another corridor. 

“Since you are a risk to the security of our organisation, I am programmed to supervise you at all times. I will observe every action until your seven years are completed and you have earned enough points to open the doors.”

As I was talking, Five tried to warp away again and I, without hesitation, beamed him back to where he had been. “Unfortunately, you have six years, eleven months, three weeks, six days, twenty three hours and forty three minutes left on your contract.”

Five warped away again, and I beamed him back again. We did this once more before Five gave up. 

“Where are we going?” he asked.  
“Mr Caraway has prepared a workstation deliberately distanced from the main building until your threat to the organisation is extinguished.”  
“What exactly is my threat?”  
I smiled. “You are a disruption risk.”  
He considered this while I opened a door right at the end of the corridor’s turn off. There were no other doors lining the walls, and we were on the fourth floor. I suppose it isn’t important for you to know that, but it’s so nice to be able to remember things, so I might include odd details just for the fun of it. We proceeded up the narrow staircase behind the door, and came out in a mostly empty space in what could only have been the roof. 

It was maintained less meticulously than the other rooms in the commission, but I think that was to do with it’s size. It had a desk-chair against one wall, a large blackboard on the one opposite the door, and a computer and monitor high on a shelf. A bench was mounted on the wall below the shelf, almost three feet high and spanning the width of the room. The room was around seven feet by six feet, and had a square window above the stand-alone desk. It was miserable if I’m honest, and just remembering it makes me uncomfortable. It was so obviously designed to make Five trapped, to force him into submission if only to escape. Every time I think about that awful, cramped room I feel ill that I was part of it. It wasn’t my choice, but I still feel sick thinking about it. 

The room wasn’t so cramped that it was hard to move around, we never crashed into each other or opened the door into a piece of furniture or anything like that. Technically, going by square footage, it was perfectly big enough for the job it was used for. It was big enough for two people, a bench, and a chair, but it was designed and furnished in such a way that it was just bordering on uncomfortable. Not enough that Five had anything solid to complain about, not that there was anyone worthwhile to complain to, but just enough to drive him very slightly crazy. 

When Five and I entered the room and I closed the door behind us, Five’s first reaction was to drag the chair desk into the centre of the room. Previously it had been pushed against one of the short walls, facing the door, but Five moved it to the centre, facing the window. I would have tried to stop him, as my software dictated that I prevent any disruption he may cause, but I was unable to. I had an override clause in my software that analysed the risk of physical harm to my body, and an attempt to restrain Five could have resulted in a physical altercation. So I allowed him to move the chair. When he was done he looked at me expectantly. I was still stood by the door, hands behind my back with a blank smile on my face.  
“Get to work, Five.” I said, and nodded my head downwards at the desk-chair. I don’t know how, but Five’s last name didn’t officially exist on file, even though I know for a fact that Herb knew what it was. So whatever the reason, I didn’t know that Five had a last name until much, much later, but we’ll get there at some point.  
I think that Five knew that, at least until he got a feel for how things worked, there was no point resisting, so he sat down begrudgingly at his desk. Satisfied, I crossed the room to the opposite corner, where the blackboard wall and the bench wall intercepted. On the bench, there was a little white box and a little black box. Each had a door in the front, and they were open at the back, attached to separate metal tubes in the walls. I opened the door of the white box to reveal a pile of paper documents, and retried one from the top of the pile. I placed it squarely on Five’s desk. “This task is valued at 11 points.”, I said. “Please notify me when it is completed.”.  
“You mentioned the points earlier, what are they for?” he asked, with a concern that was more aggravated than upset.  
“All commission issued tasks are valued in points. The more tasks you achieve, the more points you earn. I keep a running total of your point fluctuations. Food is earned with a designated number of points, but is entirely optional, and rest hours are also earned with points. Exiting the commission for any other reason than an assigned field mission is earned with points, but your contract cannot be ended prior to it’s designated end date.” I watched his reaction, impervious to the look of horror and anger on his face, and took the opportunity to educate him further, as per my programming. “The dormitories are located in what was previously the briefcase department, on the second floor, but due to your detainment you have a private dormitory on this floor. Rest can only be purchased during designated rest hours. Get to work, Five.”  
He picked up his pen in furious resignation and started on his task, the reality of his situation setting in. And I just stood there, cold and unfeeling, watching him not like an angel, as I had so long ago, but like the big brother from 1984. I was everything I hated, and I wasn’t even alive to hate it.  
My word! I’m sorry, I told you this bit was bleak, but I forgot it was that bleak”.

**Author's Note:**

> This chapters song is: The Wizard And I- from Wicked.  
> more coming soon :)  
> edit: the dots in front of the dialogue were meant to be tabs, but i can't do tab spaces on here :( it looked way better with tab spaces, so thats a shame


End file.
